The Range of Interpretation: (The Wellek Library Lectures)

There is a tacit assumption that interpretation comes naturally, that human beings live by constantly interpreting. In this sense, we might even rephrase Descartes by saying: We interpret, therefore we are. While such a basic human disposition makes interpretation appear to come naturally, the forms it takes, however, do not. In this work, Iser offers a fresh approach by formulating an "anatomy of interpretation" through which we can understand the act of interpretation in its many different manifestations. For Iser, there are several different genres of interpretation, all of which are acts of translation designed to transpose something into something else. Perhaps the most obvious example of interpretation involves canonical texts, such as the Rabbinical exegesis of the Torah or Samuel Johnson's reading of Shakespeare. But what happens when the matter that one seeks to interpret consists not of a text but of a welter of fragments, as in the study of history, or when something is hidden, as in the practice of psychoanalysis, or is as complex as a culture or system? Iser details how, in each of these cases, the space that is opened up by interpretation is negotiated in a different way, thus concluding that interpretation always depends on what it seeks to translate. For students of philosophy, literary and critical theory, anthropology, and cultural history, Iser's elucidation of the mechanics by which we translate and understand, as well as his assessment of the anthropological roots of our drive to make meaning, will undoubtedly serve as a revelation.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction The Marketplace of Interpretation Interpretation as Translatability 2. The Authority of the Canon Canonization and Midrash The Literary Canon: Dr. Johnson on Shakespeare 3. The Hermeneutic Circle Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: Self-reflective Circularity Johann Gustav Droysen: The Nesting of Circles Paul Ricoeur: Transactional Loops 4. The Recursive Loop Recursion in Ethnographic Discourse Systemic Recursion 5. The Traveling Differential: Franz Rosenzweig, "The Star of Redemption" "The Birth of the Elements Out of the Somber Foundations of Nought" Proliferating Translatability 6. Configurations of Interpretation: An Epilogue

About the Author :
Wolfgang Iser is professor of comparative literature at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He is author of The Implied Reader and The Act of Reading.

Review :
"A truly original contribution to the field, for a cultural-historical and anthropological exploration of the Western practices of interpretation has long been overdue." - Mihai I. Spariosu, University of Georgia "A challenging contribution to the anthropological turn in literary studies." - Gabriele Schwab, University of California, Irvine